<p>My argument was not that all humanities degrees are just as strenuous, it was that some of the more difficult, and prestigious humanities, such as Classics and Philosophy, are generally received very well at law schools, and in the case of the Classics major, Med school as well.</p>
<p>Yes, I am fully aware that you can major in anything and go to law school, and that math majors have the highest LSAT scores. However, most math majors do not pursue law school, and it has been reported that the most successful majors in law school are usually math, literature, and classics majors, because all three majors require a good deal of analytical work.</p>
<p>Also, of course law school doesn’t hold enough spots for all the humanities majors in the world, but there are other things that one can do with it. Becoming a teacher springs to mind, as well as copyeditor, journalist, business man and others.</p>
<p>The idea that an individual should major in something that is “useful” i.e. math, science, or engineering, is just as destructive to our education system and country as the idea that everyone should go to a 4-year college, and it appears that students are taking note if you read the article I posted.</p>
<p>pwoods: You are aware that VP Joe Biden’s son went to Iraq, aren’t you? I don’t know if you would consider our VP “political elite”, but your theory doesn’t hold up. The military is filled with Americans of all socio-economic classes (the South is represented more on a pro capita basis than some other areas of the country) and from all fifty states. You cannot assume that our armed forces are truly the way they are portrayed on your favorite tv shows. I served with volunteers from Harvard, Yale, Cornell and several of our most competitive public universities as well as many other wonderful men and women.</p>
<p>We should send this thread to the Department of Education. This has some awesome ideas and highly intellectual debates on how to fix this problem.</p>
<p>One reason a college education has become more necessary to obtaining employment is that a high school diploma has gradually become less meaningful. Social promotion was accepted as the enlightened approach, we started to obsess over building children’s self-esteem more than we did actually ensuring that they learned, and thus we’ve arrived to 2010 and schools at which red correcting pens have been outlawed, class rank is passe, and derelicts can be warehoused for 4 years in a wing of the school where they’re allowed to do nothing all day and still get a diploma.</p>
<p>Remember the exposes that revealed that our educational system was graduating high school seniors who couldn’t read and write? As a result, to ensure basic literacy in their new hires, employers decided to require at least 2 years of college or a bachelor’s degree. </p>
<p>The problem is the deterioration of our middle schools and high schools. The education at the top of the ladder may be great, and special education is mandated for the lower end, but the vast masses in the middle can graduate from high school after doing little more than filling a seat for four years.</p>
<p>The of Bureau Labor Statistics seems to disagree with you, because it projects that employment of lawyers will increase by approximately 98,500, or roughly 13% in the next 10 years.</p>
<p>Also if you are taking the “Everyone hates lawyer’s stance” I would point out that without lawyers, criminals would not be put away in jail, the innocent would not be defended at trial, it would be much harder for an individual inventor/scientist/ “person with actual skills” to get a patent or any type of protection for intellectual property.</p>
<p>Yes trial lawyers are hated, and personal injury attorneys in particular, but as the old saying goes “Everyone hates lawyers until they need one.”</p>
<p>EDIt:Also you missed the whole idea of my post by focusing on the lawyer issue. My point was that the humanities degrees that some here are railing against as a waste of time, actually do have a usefulness either in professional schools (I used law school as an example) or other areas. Essentially not everyone with a BA is doomed to work at Food Lion.</p>
<p>Simply and honestly? Yes.
However, with things the way things are, there are no better alternatives.
When k12 is fixed and people realize that college is meant for intellectuals and that it is perfectly acceptable not to aspire to that title, then we may see legitimate alternatives.</p>
<p>just a few. Google “law graduates job market”.</p>
<p>Law is a hellish field. The common advice for humanities majors “to just consider law school” isn’t realistic or practical whatsoever. There are more than enough lawyers to fulfill all the roles required by lawyers. </p>
<p>The world would be a better place with less women’s studies majors and more technical majors. More importantly, the world doesn’t need women’s studies majors who are in debt and have no job prospects.</p>
<p>It’s probably my optimistic, idealistic view, but I feel like college should be a place where people who want to pursue knowledge and a greater understanding of things should go. </p>
<p>Of course, that leads to people majoring in things they enjoy but ultimately have few job prospects. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with the college experience, but it presents problems for the future beyond college.</p>
<p>I think college has become the new high school and graduate school has replaced college in most senses. College has become even more commonplace and graduate school is the separating factor, much like college used to be.</p>
<p>If everyone just tried to be useful all the time, well, that wouldn’t be very interesting. For me, college is not about getting employed but about learning what I want to learn.</p>
<p>And, of course, you can get plenty more INTERESTING jobs with a college degree! If you WANT to spend your time as a plumber or engineer, then no, maybe college isn’t for you. But if the people in that trade are only in it for the money-- well, I guess I can’t criticize them, but I’m sorry for them, that’s all.</p>
<p>Again, not everyone’s parents are as rich as you. Since the vast majority of college students are there to improve their social and financial standing, saying “oh, well they shouldn’t be there” doesn’t accomplish much.</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant to quote an earlier statement,“The world would be a better place with less women’s studies majors and more technical majors.” My point was in response to that.</p>
<p>You’re right, I didn’t really address financial circumstances. I just don’t think the above quote should be THE reason not to go to college.</p>
<p>Many first generation college kids attend tier three or lower schools, many may not graduate. But, how about their children? Several of my HS friends did not graduate from college after giving it a try. Everone of their kids did. I think this needs to be looked at in the long term and as a cumulative generational processs.</p>
<p>I do agree with this. Long ago, a diploma might do but today a college degree is often the minimum in many areas of employment. </p>
<p>I also agree that where a lot of work that needs to be done is in K-12 education. There are kids coming out with a HS diploma with very low level skills. </p>
<p>Lastly, I think too much emphasis is being put here on your college major (and I’ve seen this elsewhere as well). Many people work in careers that are not directly related to the college major. Their education overall and the degree qualified them to be employed and they learn things on the job as well. I think too much importance is put by people here on what the major is. Many employers want to see the degree and the major is not as much of consequence. Some fields, yes, your major is directly related to employment but not in all fields. For those who feel certain majors are worthless, I don’t agree as employers want people with an education and what their major was is not so significant. Look at many employed adults and their jobs are not necessarily directly related to what they once majored in at college.</p>
<p>A crucial difference exists between ‘can’ and ‘will’. Many - probably most - college graduates, even from the top schools, are relegated to mediocre jobs that they may have been able to garner right out of high school. I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider a job waiting tables or stocking shelves at the mall to be particularly interesting, yet that is precisely what many college graduates end up doing. </p>
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<p>Leaving plumbing aside, your contention regarding engineering is provocative to say the least. So you’re contending that engineers should not attend college? Where pray tell would they then learn engineering? Engineering is often times the most difficult major at any college that offers it.</p>
<p>Allright, I have to ask - who exactly is that? Clearly this is a public figure, having won an Academy Award and multiple Golden Globes, so I think it violates nobody’s privacy to state who this is.</p>
<p>Perhaps I missed something, but isn’t it incongruous to, on the one hand, to decry the notion that people should major in - in your words - ‘useful’ majors such as science, math, and engineering, yet on the other hand, propose that humanities majors attend law school? Isn’t that the same logic - that students should strive for marketable skills? If it is problematic for students to choose technical majors for their utility, then it is equally problematic for students to choose law school for its utility.</p>
<p>Is that so? Then why do many other nations that run highly sophisticated legal systems and medical care that may actually exceed the standard available in the United States, do exactly that regarding their legal and medical education? Medical schools in the United Kingdom admit most students right out of high school. Nevertheless, the UK provides some of the best medical care in the world. Similarly, most law students attend the British equivalent of law school right after high school (although they do have to undergo a post-graduation period of training to be fully licensed barristers). Tony Blair studied law at Oxford and Cherie Booth Blair studied law at LSE with no need for a prerequisite bachelor’s. Yet I think we would all agree that the British legal system is one of the most robust and highly regarded systems in the world, and serves as the basis for much of the US legal system. Nobody seems to object that the students lack the proper intellectual/emotional maturity. Perhaps British students mature faster than do Americans?</p>
<p>I’m speaking of humanities and social sciences majors in general, not the tiny fraction within the performing arts. I think you would concede that within the grand spectrum of HSS majors, there are numerous ways to graduate while doing relatively little work. </p>
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<p>Frankly, I wish the same system could be enacted within engineering. Sure, performing arts juries may not allow you to progress, but at least they won’t mark your permanent transcript with a failing grade. Those students can therefore leave the program with a clean slate.</p>
<p>In contrast, engineering majors seem to delight in tagging students with failing grades while throwing them out of the program. Not only are you no longer an engineering student, your transcript has been scarred with terrible grades which hinder your chances of transferring to some other program. Respectable schools don’t want to admit transfer applicants who flunked out of their previous schools. They won’t care that you flunked out because of difficult engineering coursework; all they’ll see is that you flunked out. </p>
<p>I’ve been a proponent for the notion that schools should simply cancel the failing engineering grades of weeded engineering students. They’re not going to major in engineering anyway - so who cares what their engineering grades were? Let them leave with a clean slate, in the same manner that performing arts students who can’t surmount the juries are allowed to leave the program with a clean slate. But engineering programs refuse to do that. Seems to me that they delight in tattooing students with poor grades. </p>
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<p>But you’ll still pass. Sure, you might receive a C, but that’s still passing.</p>
<p>Let’s not also neglect the subjectivity of engineering grading, particularly as it has to do with the curve, which by nature is unpredictable. You can demonstrate mastery of the material on any given engineering exam…and still fail, because your score was low relative to the other students. As a case in point, I knew a guy who scored somewhere in the high 80%'s on a particular engineering exam…yet still failed, because the average was a 95%. It doesn’t matter how much you know, it only matters how much you know relative to what the other students know. </p>
<p>That then leads to the engineering study-time ratchet: you don’t dare stop studying because you know that every moment you’re not studying, other students are studying, which demotes your position on the curve. </p>
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<p>I similarly doubt that many failed performing arts majors turn to engineering to improve their grades. Heck, I doubt that students from any major turn to engineering to improve their grades.</p>